Commentary: Vouchers will be top political issue

Vouchers to help pay for private, often parochial, education - financed by state tax dollars - seems headed toward being the top political issue next year in Wisconsin.

Gov. Scott Walker champions the idea, contending it is aimed at helping families obtain a better education. Vouchers are now available in Milwaukee and Racine schools, and Walker proposed allowing another 1,000 students to participate in nine more school districts.

Proponents have suggested opening the door to participation for students in all 424 public school districts. Jim Bender, president of School Choice in Wisconsin, said vouchers would encourage private schools and provide a better supply of potential students.

Critics say the vouchers would drain government money from public education, sending it to private schools. They also note a family of four would be eligible if its annual income was less than $76,800.

Enrollment in private schools has plunged from 145,000 to 99,705 in a 20-year period, according to State Sen. Glen Grothman, R-West Bend. Ten additional schools closed this year.

"The Legislature cannot allow another school year to go by with such an anti-independent school bias," said Grothman.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Evers suggests the limits on the number of participants proposed by Walker wouldn't last long. Eau Claire School Board member Wendy Sue Johnson says there is no evidence that voucher schools have been successful in Milwaukee and Racine.

Some of the sharpest criticism comes from former State Rep. Polly Williams, a Milwaukee Democrat, who pushed the original voucher programs for poor families in the 1990s. Republicans in 2011 increased the family-income eligibility limits, she notes.

"They have high-jacked the program," Williams told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "The upper income people will push the low incomes out."

Proponents of taxpayer help for private schools are unphased by the worry of two school systems. "Parents of parochial school kids have been paying for two school systems for years," says State Sen. Jerry Petrowski, R-Marathon.

Petrowski, Grothman, and State Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, are the authors of an even more ambitious idea to help parochial school education. They suggest that all Wisconsin families be eligible for a credit that would reduce their state income tax. But the emphasis in the State Capitol this spring is on the voucher program.

Proponents like to promote the concept, contending it would help children and their families to get the best education. But some may see it as a bail out for private schools.

The concept seems to clash with Walker's speech making that citizens must stop being dependent on government aid.

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Commentary: Vouchers will be top political issue

Vouchers to help pay for private, often parochial, education - financed by state tax dollars - seems headed toward being the top political issue next year in Wisconsin.

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